


Visiting Day

by dance_across



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Established Relationship, Hand Jobs, Is It Sex Or Masturbation If It's With Your Younger Self? Who Knows!, Kissing, Light Angst, M/M, POV Victor, Post-Canon, Self-cest, Suicidal Thoughts (past), canon compliant AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-11
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-10-30 14:04:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10878315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dance_across/pseuds/dance_across
Summary: “You didn’t expect me,” says the… the other one.“No,” Victor admits. “I didn’t even think this was possible.”“You’re uncomfortable.”“You’reme.”





	Visiting Day

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to airspaniel for the brainstorming sessions, and to ineptshieldmaid for listening to me ramble on about how much I usually dislike AUs. You know, before I accidentally wrote one. Uh.
> 
> Also, you'll note that I didn't tag for infidelity, despite the multiple relationship tags and the lack of a threesome/polyamory tag. But if anything that _could_ be interpreted as infidelity (since it's kind of a fuzzy line here) is a squick for you, maybe read the end notes first, just so you have a better idea of what you're getting into.

The line is so long that it loops around the entirety of the store, and there is salt everywhere. Everywhere. Shelves of it, with signs saying things like _Back to Basics: Best Price You’ll Find_ and _Dead Sea Salt: For a Pain-Free Banishing Experience_ and _Scented to Show You Care_. Yuuri can’t read any of them, of course, as his Russian is still very basic, but it takes effort for Victor not to roll his eyes at the signs.

Visiting Day has become almost as commercialized as Christmas. As _American_ Christmas.

They shuffle toward the register. Yuuri clutches their canister of salt. It’s lavender-scented, at Yuuri’s insistence. A family tradition, he said. In Victor’s hands is a basket of odds and ends that he figured they might as well buy while they’re here: a new sponge for the kitchen sink, a few rolls of paper towels, a bag of rice. Some of the other people in line have groceries. Most don’t. Most only have salt. And ribbons.

“Ribbons,” Victor says, reminded as he watches the crowd. “Do you want to get ribbons?”

Yuuri’s eyes go wide. “I thought you said you had some at home.”

Victor shakes his head. “I’ve never really done the ribbon thing.”

“Then how do you—” Yuuri cuts himself off, a shy smile creeping across his face. “Sorry. I’m not judging or anything. It’s just. Everyone at home does ribbons.”

“Maybe it’s more of a thing in Japan than it is here,” Victor suggests with a shrug. It’s not that he hasn’t seen people do it. But it’s old people and little kids, mostly. Or really religious people. Not any of his own friends; not him.

“Do you mind if I get one?” Yuuri says, face reddening as his eyes lock onto the nearest display. Multicolored ribbons, for sale individually or in packets of twelve.

“Get one for me, too,” Victor says. “We’ll go together.”

And he holds their place in line while Yuuri darts over to the display, salt clutched against his chest. He comes back with a blue ribbon for himself and a pink one for Victor.

“I got a marker, too,” Yuuri says shyly. “Markers usually work best.”

“Good to know,” Victor says, and adds the items to his basket.

They pay, and they leave.

-

Victor chews on the end of his pen. Glances at Yuuri, who has just started to write. “Who are you asking for?”

Yuuri’s marker pauses mid-stroke. “You aren’t supposed to say.” He continues writing. Short, careful strokes across the length of the blue ribbon.

Victor tries to peek, but even with a clear view, he can’t make out the name. His Japanese isn’t much better than Yuuri’s Russian.

The wind tries to lift Victor’s ribbon off his lap; he flattens his palm to keep it in place. He watches the throng of people milling around in front of the fence. Some are writing, as Yuuri is. Some are tying their ribbons to the fence. Some are poking through the ribbons that have already been tied, reading them. Snooping. It makes Victor feel uncomfortable, watching them snoop. It makes him feel a little guilty, too, for trying to read over Yuuri’s shoulder.

He looks at the pink ribbon under his hand. It’s still blank.

“Can you write someone you’ve gotten before?” Victor asks, because he isn’t sure what the rules are. “I mean, I know you can get the same person more than once, so I guess…”

His grandmother, twice, including last year, just before his impromptu first flight to Hasetsu. His mother, four times. Never his father, for some reason.

“I don’t think it matters,” Yuuri says, and finishes writing. He stands up, determination etched into the set of his shoulders. “I’m going to hang mine up. Or—oh—should I wait for you?”

It shouldn’t matter. Waiting or not-waiting. It shouldn’t make a difference. But if Victor’s going to do this for Yuuri, it only makes sense to do it _with_ Yuuri. So he says, “Do you mind waiting?”

Yuuri’s face softens. “Of course not,” he says, and sits back down on the bench, a warm presence beside Victor in the cold St. Petersburg air.

Maybe he should write his father’s name. Ask him why he never bothered visiting before. Ask him why he was such an asshole when he was still alive. Not that doing ribbons will make a difference between getting his father and getting someone else, but still. If he’s going to do this, he can at least pretend to believe.

He begins to write. One careful Cyrillic letter after another. The fabric of the ribbon doesn’t take the ink from his pen very well. Silently, Yuuri offers his marker. Victor takes it, and Yuuri’s right; it does work better.

“Whose name is that?” Yuuri asks playfully.

Victor shoots him a smile. “You aren’t supposed to say.”

He writes the remaining letters of his mother’s name, and then stands and offers his hand to Yuuri. They approach the fence together.

-

“There was this one year,” Yuuri says. “I must’ve been fourteen, I think, or maybe fifteen, and I got my aunt. She’s—she _was_ my mother’s sister. My mother’s usually the one who gets her. Not that year, though. That year, I got her, and my mother got _her_ mother. Only that one year.”

“I used to share a rink with these twin sisters, Darya and Alyona,” Victor says. “They had the same best friend growing up—someone who died young. Cancer, I think. One year they told me they _both_ got her.”

Yuuri’s eyes narrow. “At the same time? Oh, you mean they were in the same place?”

Victor shakes his head. “Darya was at church. Alyona was home with the flu.”

Yuuri’s face is pure skepticism. He purses his lips. But he doesn’t say anything.

Neither does Victor, because the how-does-it-work argument is not, and has never really been, an argument worth having. An interesting debate, maybe, but you can’t have an argument without proof. Well, not unless you’re American.

There’s quiet between them for a long moment, during which Victor hears someone a few rows behind them, closer to the middle door of the bus, say something about ghosts. Someone else laughs and says, “Yeah, maybe I thought that when I was _five_.”

Victor smiles and catches Yuuri’s eye. Yuuri’s smiling, too.

“It _could_ be ghosts,” Yuuri says.

Victor adopts a radio announcer voice and says, “It could be physical manifestations of our subconscious desires.”

“Aliens,” Yuuri says.

“Holograms,” Victor says.

“Collective hallucinations,” Yuuri says.

“Oh _god_ ,” says Victor, remembering. “That one guy who said he’d never been visited. Remember? Come on. That’s just not possible.”

“Yeah, I read his book,” Yuuri says. “It was stupid.”

There’s movement beside Victor. He looks up.

A bright-eyed girl stands above him, swaying with the movement of the bus. “Excuse me, um, aren’t you Victor Nikiforov?”

Victor widens his smile and brightens his face, just in case she has a camera. “Guilty. What’s your name?”

-

He tries, over and over, to get Yuuri to put the salt canister in Victor’s canvas bag, with the rest of their shopping. He won’t do it, though. He hugs it close until they get home.

Victor busies himself playing with Makka, who has been _such a good boy_ in their absence and _didn’t he miss them_ and _does he want a treat_. There is wrestling involved and, yes, he does want a treat.

Once Makkachin has calmed down and started chewing on the wing of his favorite stuffed owl, Victor turns his attention back to Yuuri, who has set the canister down and opened it. It does smell like lavender. Strongly.

Victor has only ever used regular salt. He has no idea if it makes a difference.

“I know someone,” Yuuri says slowly, “who got visited by a cat she used to have.”

Victor smiles. He’s about to say something, probably something about _it can’t be animals and she was probably lying_ , but the tone of Yuuri’s voice stops him.

He remembers, then, about Vicchan. And he won’t ask, because he knows he won’t get an answer, but he’s pretty sure he knows what Yuuri wrote on his ribbon.

Coming up behind Yuuri, Victor wraps his arms around him, resting his chin on Yuuri’s shoulder. “I wonder how common that is,” Victor says mildly. “Getting pets who have died.”

Yuuri shrugs. There’s tension in him. And no wonder; sunset is fast approaching.

Victor hugs him tighter. “I know someone who said he got visited by the ghost of a past relationship.”

Yuuri bursts out laughing, and turns in Victor’s arms. “But that’s… that’s a _concept_ , not a _person_ …”

“I know.”

“That’s just not…!”

“I _know_.”

Yuuri raises an eyebrow. “Let me guess. Georgi?”

Victor nods, trying his best to look serious, solemn. “He said he had to watch them being happy together. He said he banished them early, then cried all night.”

“Oh my god,” Yuuri says, and buries his face in Victor’s shoulder, his body still shaking with laughter.

Victor kisses the top of Yuuri’s head, and then lifts his face up so he can kiss Yuuri’s forehead, cheeks, nose, lips… neck… collarbone…

Yuuri’s breath hitches as Victor reaches for his belt. “Not now,” he says. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

“After?” Victor asks.

“Maybe,” Yuuri says, going still in his arms. “It’s always… I never know if I’ll…” He swallows hard. “But. Maybe.”

-

Victor dumps half the canister of salt into a bowl for himself, and leaves the rest for Yuuri. “Bedroom?” he asks. “Living room? Guest room? We could do it in the kitchen. Easier clean-up if we end up using the salt, but not a lot of space.”

Yuuri stares at him. “I… oh, um…”

“What?”

Yuuri’s cheeks begin to redden. “You do it in groups? With… other people?”

Victor frowns.

“We always did it alone,” Yuuri rushes to explain. “My family. I mean. We each went to our own rooms… although I guess I don’t know what my parents did….”

“Sorry, I just assumed,” Victor begins.

“I mean, we _can_ ,” says Yuuri.

“But if you don’t want to,” says Victor.

“I…” Yuuri trails off again, looking torn.

Victor has lived alone for the past ten years. He’s never had to negotiate Visiting Day space with other people. Although, when he lived with Yakov… actually, he doesn’t remember. Did they each go into their separate rooms? Lock the doors, check in with each other at sunrise? Or did they gather together somewhere, as he envisioned himself doing with Yuuri?

Wait, no. He never saw Yakov talking to his visitor. Or Lilia, before she moved out. He never saw, and he would have remembered something like that: his coach, having a conversation with an invisible companion. So he must have been alone.

“Take the bedroom,” Victor tells Yuuri, gently as he can. “I’ll take the guest room.”

“I love you,” says Yuuri, looking grateful.

“I love you, too,” says Victor. The words come easily, these days, but they are never any less truthful than the first time he said them. He kisses Yuuri fiercely, and says, “Keep your phone on. Just in case.”

Yuuri blinks. “In case of what?”

 _In case you decide to banish your visitor early_ , Victor thinks. _In case you need more salt. In case you need to cry on me._

He says, “In case the time comes when you can’t live another second without seeing me naked,” and punctuates it with a wink.

They go their separate ways. Makkachin follows Yuuri to the bedroom.

-

The guest room is spare and tasteful. It is also a lot smaller than the bedroom. There is a desk with a chair, a small bookshelf containing more decorative trinkets than actual books, and an empty dresser. There are two doors: one leading to the living room, one leading to the private half bath. Makkachin is not allowed in here, because they sometimes have guests who are allergic to dogs.

The quilt on the bed belonged, over twenty years ago, to Victor’s mother.

Aside from a scattering of clouds, the sky outside is clear. Oranges and pinks brighten the horizon, but Victor won’t be able to see the actual moment the sun sets. The city skyline blocks his view. Not that it matters. Nobody really knows how precise the timing is.

Victor sits on the edge of the bed, hands clasped, waiting.

 _I have a boyfriend,_ he tells himself, rehearsing. _He is actually my fiancé. We are going to get married. We joke about planning it when he wins gold, but if he wanted to do it tomorrow, I would. He is soft-eyed and headstrong, and he is anxious and kind. I love him more than anything. I love him with more love than I knew I had._

“I have a boyfriend,” he says again, this time out loud. He did not have a boyfriend on last year’s Visiting Day. “His name is Yuuri.”

That’s when the air around him goes taut. His ears thrum, and he stretches his jaw to pop them.

Behind him, a voice says, “Whose name is Yuuri?” Victor stands and turns around.

It’s not his mother.

-

Across the city, across the world, people are being visited by the dead. Relatives and friends. People they used to know, or people they had connections to. Once, Victor heard a story about a man being visited every year by a young girl that he’d killed long ago. The story has stayed in the back of his mind ever since.

He’s wondered about pets, but he’s never really believed it could happen. He’s wondered, too, about people who are still alive—people in comas, people incapable of communicating in more common ways.

He’s wondered about long-dead people. Famous people, legendary people. He’s wondered if that man who claims to have been visited by Nicholas II was telling the truth. He’s wondered if, decades into the future, someone will care enough to claim, publicly, to have been visited by Victor Nikiforov.

He has never, not once, wondered about _this_.

-

“You,” Victor says, staring.

“Me.” The visitor is smiling brightly—too brightly. His chin is tilted just so, and his long braid hangs over his left shoulder, and his eyes sparkle, and he is camera-ready and so, so young.

Sixteen? Seventeen?

No. Victor can see the scar at the base of his left thumb, jagged, marred with stitches. That places him at nineteen. The fall he took. He remembers that fall.

Victor runs a finger over the base of his own left thumb. The skin there bumps unnaturally, and is slightly smoother and whiter than the skin around it. It’s hardly noticeable anymore, but it’s still there.

“Are you…” Victor knows he’s about to say something stupid. He learned young, as everyone does, not to ask how or why. They never answer. Some speculate that they don’t even hear. But this is too weird, and he can’t help himself: “Are you a ghost? Are you dead? Am I _dead_?”

It’s the stupidest question he’s ever asked. Obviously he isn’t dead. He is standing right here, being visited on Visiting Day.

_However._

Nineteen-year-old Victor cocks his head and gives him an uncomprehending smile. “Sorry, what was that?”

Victor shakes his head. His eyes land on that scar again. “Worlds. I fell badly and didn’t medal.”

“Made headlines anyway,” says his visitor, smirking. “There were photos of me everywhere.”

 _Photos of me, not you,_ Victor wants to say. _Photos of us,_ maybe. Both options seem wrong, though.

Instead, he says, “I remember.”

His visitor, his… his other self, his younger self, takes a step toward him. It’s so disconcerting, seeing his own face like this. From the outside. With no control over what it’s doing. Victor swallows.

“You didn’t expect me,” says the… the other one.

“No,” Victor admits. “I didn’t even think this was possible.”

“You’re uncomfortable.”

“You’re _me_ ,” Victor says.

His younger self raises a delicate eyebrow. His blue eyes shine—and they really are so very, very blue. Even when they haven’t been photoshopped. No wonder he gets so many compliments on them.

“True,” he replies at last. “Well, you can banish me, if you want. It’s a bit early for it, but you make the rules, not me.”

“No,” Victor says, too quickly.

“All right, well, we could take pictures? Sell them to the tabloids. Make millions. Give my fans wank material that will last them _decades_.”

Victor’s stomach turns. Was he really this crude at nineteen?

Yeah. Yes. He was.

“You know we can’t take pictures,” is his only reply. Visitors never show up in photos. Nor can they be seen by anyone but the people they visit.

His younger self shrugs, a measured gesture of casual indifference. “Then what? Do I tell you about my life? You tell me about yours? I get sad about the future, you get nostalgic for the past?”

“I don’t know if—Wait. Sad? Why would you be sad?” Victor asks.

“I mean, you’re _old_.” His younger self’s gaze lingers distrustfully on his short hair.

Self-conscious, Victor reaches up and touches it. “I’m twenty-eight.”

“Old. Do you even still compete?”

“Well, I just made a comeback after—”

“What I mean is do you still _win_?”

There’s a hardness, now, to his younger self’s face. An angular kind of determination, shaping features that are otherwise—is it egotistical to say? probably, but he’ll say it anyway—ethereally beautiful.

He is still beautiful now, although being told so by Yuuri, instead of by strangers, has made him believe it in a deeper, more lasting way.

“I still win sometimes,” Victor says slowly, wondering if he should tell his visitor about the five consecutive championships that are still in his future.

“Sometimes,” says his younger self, with a snort.

“It’s not all about winning—”

“Oh no, oh god, no,” his younger self moans, throwing himself dramatically onto the bed. “You’re one of _them_.”

“One of…?”

“ _It’s not all about winning_ ,” mimics the visitor. “The only people who say that are the people who lose more than they win.”

“That’s not—”

“You should probably retire.”

“Hold on—”

“And then probably kill yourself, because honestly—”

“Do _not_ joke about that.” The words come out of Victor in a low growl; that’s when he realizes that he’s halfway across the bed, looming over his younger self with one hand clamped over his mouth. Blue eyes stare up at him, stunned. Victor swallows and pulls his hand away, sitting back on his heels. He is breathing too fast. “Sorry.”

His younger self sits up slowly. “Well, that was a reaction.”

“Sorry,” Victor says again, trying to regulate his breathing a little. “Sorry, Vi… Victor. Victor?”

A smirk spreads across his younger self’s face. “Glad you haven’t gone senile. Congratulations, you remember your own name.”

Victor sighs. “Very funny, it’s just…”

 _What do I call you?_ is just another in a long line of stupid questions, though. They can call each other Victor, and it won’t make much of a difference. They can call each other nothing at all, since they’re the only two people in the room.

But then, Yuuri’s voice comes into his head. _Aw look, baby Vitya, with his long, lovely hair,_ he’ll say, usually when confronted a picture from before The Haircut, usually tracing an index finger down the line of Victor’s body. _Baby Vitya._

“Vitya,” says Victor decisively. “Is that okay?”

“Why wouldn’t it be? It’s my name.” Vitya levels a look at him. “So what was that about?”

“What?”

“Oh, so you _have_ gone senile. The time you attacked me, is what. Thirty seconds ago. Feel like explaining?”

Victor does not feel like explaining. Not just because he isn’t comfortable talking about it, either. It’s because he’s starting to _wonder._

-

The time-travel theory is a popular one. Almost as popular as the ghost theory. Some believers say that visitors are plucked from moments in their lives—solitary moments, where nobody would be around to miss them—and dropped into the lives of those they visit. Other believers say that the timelines of the visitors fold in on themselves to compensate for the time they spend visiting.

Victor does not believe in any of the prevailing visitor theories. Nor does he _not_ believe in them. He is, as they say, visitor-theory agnostic.

Right now, though, he is seriously starting to wonder about the time-travel one.

-

“So you can’t tell me,” Vitya says, sounding unimpressed.

Victor shakes his head firmly. “No.”

“Well, can I guess?” Vitya asks. “You tried to kill yourself once, and it didn’t work, but you lost your sense of humor in the process—”

“Will you stop?” Victor says. “ _No_.”

“No, that’s not what happened, or no, you still won’t tell me?”

“The second one,” Victor says. After a moment’s hesitation, he adds, “The first one, too. I never tried. I just… thought about it. Once or twice. When things got bad, before…”

“Before what?” asks Vitya eagerly.

 _Before Yuuri. Before the video, before the banquet. Before I recognized that something needed to change, and then changed something._ These are all things he might have said to any other visitor before today. Not this one, though. Because this is his own nineteen-year-old self, and what if he says the wrong thing? What if he changes his own mind about something, nine years after the fact, and what if everything else changes because of it?

Would he, at nineteen, have gone easier on himself if he knew how much skating would take from him? Would he have quit? Would he have pushed himself harder? Injured himself, been forced into an early retirement? And then what?

Would he have met Yuuri regardless, or…?

Head spinning with possibilities, each worse than the last, Victor says, “Look, if it _is_ time travel, you have to tell me so.”

Vitya squints, like Victor has just started speaking Polish or something. He didn’t understand the question. It’s possible he didn’t even understand that there _was_ a question.

“Because I don’t want to screw anything up,” Victor explains, regardless. Normally he isn’t so indelicate—he _knows_ to avoid questions like these, same as everyone does, and he _knows_ not to push, to explain—but this is so frustrating.

“Then don’t screw anything up,” says Vitya, shrugging, like it’s simple.

And, well, maybe it is.

“Tell me about _you_ ,” says Victor. “Where are you now? What programs are you working on?”

_Who are you sleeping with? What mistakes are you about to make?_

“You know all that already,” says Vitya. He holds up his hand, stitches on display, reminding Victor of his earlier comment. “Worlds. The big fall. Et cetera.”

“Sure,” Victor says uneasily, “but I’d rather hear it from you.”

“Uh,” says Vitya, looking slightly lost. Then he draws himself up again, his back straight, his chin lifted. “I’ve started work on my programs for next season. I’m choreographing them myself.”

Victor can’t help smiling. “Feels good, doesn’t it? It’s…”

“Freeing,” Vitya finishes for him.

“Yes. It is.”

“How many golds will they win for me?” Vitya asks.

The answer, unfortunately, is none. Victor remembers that season, the one where he started using his own choreography. He was so certain that it would propel him to heights even greater than before—but he wasn’t nearly as good as he thought he was. He wasn’t nearly as good as he would later become. But he remembers how good it felt to pour himself, his whole self, into the creation of his routines.

What he says is, “You’ll just have to see.”

Vitya rolls his eyes. “How many _medals_ will they win for me?”

A small handful, but nothing compared to his previous seasons. But Victor says again, “You’ll just have to see.”

Vitya grins. “How many people will see them and want to sleep with me?”

Hundreds. Thousands. Millions. Victor had his pick of beautiful men that season—fans, bloggers, competitors—and he picked as many of them as he could.

“You’ll just have to see.”

“Fine, fine,” Vitya says, rolling his eyes as he sits back on his heels. One hand comes up to catch the end of his braid. He twirls the lock of silver-blonde hair around his index finger. His eyes narrow as he studies Victor. “People still want to sleep with me when I’m… when I’m you, right?”

“You mean when you’re old,” Victor says, sort of teasing, sort of not.

Vitya shrugs, almost apologetically. “It’s not that you’re not still good-looking. You are. But—”

“Be nice,” Victor warns.

“Oh, is that what you are now?” Vitya’s smile is razor-sharp. “Nice?”

Victor hesitates. Inwardly, no. He is not always nice. Outwardly, though…

“There are worse things to be,” he replies.

“Whatever,” Vitya says. “Come on, tell me. Do I still have sex when I’m _twenty-eight_? Who am I sleeping with by the time I’m you?”

It’s basically the same question he nearly asked Vitya a moment ago. And that’s the difference between them, he supposes. All the same thoughts, born of the same brain. Only now, he’s somehow learned to filter them.

“Let me guess,” Vitya continues, when Victor doesn’t answer right away. “You can’t tell me.”

He could. He could tell his younger self all about Yuuri—his boyfriend, his fiancé, the love of his life, the man who made him remember what being happy felt like—and he wants to, too. He would be perfectly happy talking about Yuuri until sunrise.

But. _What if._

“No, I can’t,” Victor says. “But you’ll like it when it happens.”

Vitya’s eyes light up. “I will? Am I _dating_ someone?”

Victor can’t help the smile that draws his lips upward, or the way his cheeks go hot.

“I am!” crows Vitya. “Who is he? Do you have pictures? Is he absolutely stunning? Does he skate? Or, ooh, is he a dancer? I’ve always wanted to date a dancer.”

“I can’t _tell_ you,” Victor says, but he’s still smiling.

“Well, how is he in bed?” Vitya asks. “At least tell me that.”

A horrified laugh bursts from Victor’s mouth. “I am _not_ talking to you about my sex life.”

“Why not?” Vitya bounces a little on the bed. “I’ll tell you all about mine.”

“I know about yours. I was there.”

“Come on, come on, please.”

“You’re a child,” Victor says weakly.

“I’m nineteen,” Vitya counters.

“You’re a child compared to _me_ ,” Victor says.

“I _am_ you,” purrs Vitya. “Come on, beautiful. Tell me.”

He’s leaning forward on his hands now, the top half of his body just beginning to edge into Victor’s personal space. His braid still hangs over his shoulder; Victor remembers the exact moment that he realized how enticing other people found his hair. He remembers learning to twist the end of his braid around his finger, to look up at beautiful men through his eyelashes, even if they were taller than him. He remembers learning this tone of voice. He remembers all of it.

Victor finds himself nodding. “He’s good. He’s very, very good in bed.”

“Do I get details?” says Vitya.

_Yuuri, fisting his hand in Victor’s hair. Yuuri’s thighs, quivering beneath Victor’s fingers as Victor slides to his knees. Yuuri, whispering Victor’s name as he comes. Yuuri’s clever hands, his beautiful cock, his eager mouth, his eyes, his eyes…_

“Absolutely not,” says Victor.

Vitya’s eyes are warm and inviting. Victor remembers learning how to make them that way. Doesn’t make it any less effective, though. Victor can’t look away.

“Do you remember,” Vitya says, his voice low and husky, “the Mediterranean cruise? Alec, and that ridiculous suite of his?”

Victor draws in a sharp breath. He doesn’t particularly _want_ to remember. But he does anyway.

-

The first time they talked about it, Yuuri said he wasn’t sure. It’s impossible to be sure—that was his reason—and he didn’t have proof.

“Lots of people believe things without proof,” Victor said, taking his hand.

“ _You_ don’t,” Yuuri said, obviously worried. “You said so in that interview, a few years ago. You said there wasn’t _any_ theory you really believed.”

“Just because I don’t, that doesn’t mean _you_ can’t,” Victor told him.

Yuuri looked down at his lap. They were on a flight that day. First class, because why even bother, otherwise?

“I want to know what you believe,” Victor said. “I want to know you.”

Yuuri licked his lips. Replied without looking up: “Ghosts.”

“Ghosts,” repeated Victor.

Yuuri chanced a look up at him, then. “We all think that. My whole family. I know a lot of people think it’s dumb, but…”

“It’s not dumb,” Victor said, squeezing his hand. “It _could_ be ghosts.”

-

The cruise was a gift from a man he’d slept with a couple of times: Alec Something-or-other, the son of an American oil billionaire. He was out privately, and closeted publicly, and had thrown money at his fascination with Victor until Victor couldn’t help being fascinated in return. It was a heady thing, being desired so extravagantly.

It got less heady after a week of being trapped on a ship the size of a small city, with nothing to do but gamble and lounge about in the sun. Aside from being pale enough to burn far too easily, Victor was a person who thrived on movement, and he grew _bored_ without the ice beneath him, without the wind in his hair. There were morning yoga classes, and a small gym near the top deck of the ship, but that wasn’t nearly enough.

Alec had the time of his life, though, parading Victor around, treating him to dinner as though it wasn’t already included in the exorbitant price of the cabin. And so Victor pretended to enjoy himself.

“Has… has that happened already?” Victor asks now. Was he really only nineteen when he agreed to leave the world behind for a week, in the company of a young man he barely knew?

“Yes,” Vitya says, and his whole face glows. “The sex was _amazing_.”

Victor blinks. Amazing. Was it amazing? He doesn’t remember. He frowns.

“Come on, it hasn’t been _that_ long,” Vitya says, tilting his head, playing with the end of his braid. “Remember when Alec talked you into taking your trunks off in the hot tub? Or—oh—remember when he tied you to the bedpost, but then the steward came in without knocking, and you were already naked—”

“I remember,” Victor says curtly. He remembers bonding with Alec over having something of an exhibitionist streak. He _also_ remembers Alec taking it too far, too often. He remembers avoiding Alec toward the end of the cruise.

Vitya’s face goes soft. “He told me he loved me. That was so nice of him.”

A lump rises in Victor’s throat, and he feels such tenderness for the young man in front of him. This younger self of his, who knows everything about seduction and nothing about love.

“You know he doesn’t, though, right?” Victor asks, before he can stop himself.

“But he _said_ he did.” Vitya’s smile is still aggressively present. “It’s nice to be told.”

“It’s nicer when it’s real,” Victor says.

Vitya just looks at him. To any other person in the world, it would probably seem as though his face hasn’t changed at all. His eyes still seduce, his smile is still fluid and lovely. The lines of his body are sensual, deliberately so. Victor, though, can see how much effort lies inside this one simple expression.

Before he can question the impulse, Victor leans forward and covers one of his younger self’s hands with his own. “Look. I know how lonely you are. I _know_. Nobody knows more than I do, and it’s only going to get worse from here. You have to keep going, though. Keep skating, keep competing, keep letting your fans love you. Because that’s how you find him.”

“Find who?”

Victor doesn’t say Yuuri’s name. But he smiles.

“The… the person you’re dating?” Vitya asks. His voice is small.

 _Fuck it_ , thinks Victor, and corrects him: “The person I’m going to marry.”

Vitya’s eyes widen, though he tries to hold the rest of his face steady. He breathes, sharply, in and out. He says, “I’m not lonely, though. I’m not.”

“I know,” Victor says quietly. “I remember thinking that, too.”

Thinking it over and over again, like a mantra. Thinking it until he almost believed it.

“I’m not,” Vitya says again.

This time, Victor doesn’t answer. This time, he leans in and presses a kiss to Vitya’s forehead.

Vitya moves faster than he can track—and when Victor finds himself being kissed in return, it’s on the lips.

-

The leading argument against the ghost theory, as far as Victor knows, is that nobody has been able to prove the existence of ghosts in the first place. The leading argument against the time-travel theory is that, well, if you were one of the people who traveled into the future to visit someone, wouldn’t you remember having done so?

“Maybe you _wouldn’t_ remember,” someone suggested, a long time ago. Christophe, maybe? “Maybe the universe compensates around itself and erases the memory of your visit.”

“ _The universe compensates around itself_ ,” Victor echoed in amazement. English was a second language for both of them, and they were both fluent, but he’d never heard phrasing like this from Christophe before. “Where’d you hear that one?”

“Some science program, I think. Or, wait, no. It was _Doctor Who_.”

“You’re a nerd!” Victor said, delighted. “I didn’t know you were a nerd.”

“I have hidden depths,” Christophe replied—and yes, it was definitely him, because they were both naked in Chris’s bed, and that was when Chris rolled over, stuck his ass in the air, and added, “Very _deep_ depths. Would you like to come find them?”

-

The kiss is over so quickly that Victor barely has time to register the strangeness of it before Vitya is pulling away again, two fingers pressed against his lips, eyes wide in wonder. Or is that fear?

Where to begin? Where in the world to begin?

Victor is honestly tempted to grab the bowl of salt from the nightstand, throw it at Vitya, and end this right now. He doesn’t, though. He doesn’t, because Vitya is frozen in front of him, staring at him. He looks like he’s barely breathing.

“Vitya…”

“I’m not sorry,” is Vitya’s breathless reply.

“I didn’t ask you to be sorry,” Victor says, trying desperately to gather his wits. “It’s just that I’m engaged. Like I told you.”

“But I’m you,” Vitya says. “So it doesn’t matter.”

This catches Victor off guard. _Does_ it matter? Yuuri would understand, because Yuuri is amazing, but does it matter to Victor himself?

“Let me kiss you again,” Vitya says. His voice is low and earnest.

Victor feels delirious. Maybe it _is_ a hallucination. Not time-travel at all. Not ghosts. Just his own brain, working overtime.

“Why?” he asks.

“Because.” Vitya swallows hard. “Because you know what it feels like to be kissed by someone who loves you. And I don’t, and I want to. And because… you love me, right? I mean, you _have_ to. Because you _are_ me.”

How simple the logic. How untrue it’s often been.

“Please,” Vitya whispers. “Please don’t say no to me.”

Victor remembers being this person. He remembers, so vividly, talking himself into thinking he was happy, into thinking he wasn’t lonely. Into thinking that he was loved because he had fans, sponsors, gold medals, paparazzi following him around. He remembers feeling the desperation that he hears now, in Vitya’s voice.

He remembers, and he says, “I won’t.”

And when Vitya surges across the space that separates them, Victor meets him with open arms and a willing mouth, and kisses him like he kisses Yuuri—or as close to it as he can get without Yuuri actually being there.

Vitya, though, kisses like a thing untamed. His mouth goes too wide, too soon, and his tongue is everywhere, and the movement of his hands is frantic, clutching, clinging.

Victor puts his hands on his younger self’s cheeks, holding his face away, steadying it. “Shh,” he says, when Vitya tries to protest. “Slow down. Just breathe. Just be here. You don’t have to prove anything with me, okay?”

Vitya looks _terrified_.

Victor leans in again, touching his lips to Vitya’s, feeling their shape. He takes his time figuring out how they fit together, breathing against Vitya’s lips, waiting for him to _relax_ already.

And then, finally, Vitya seems to get it. His hands come up to touch Victor’s face, a mirror of what Victor himself is doing. He moves his lips slowly, responding to Victor, following, then leading, then following again. A slow dance, ebbing and flowing between them, building in its own time instead of all at once.

It does build, though, and soon Vitya is up on his knees, edging closer and closer, pressing his young, slender body against Victor’s. He’s hard. Vitya, that is. And Victor, while he isn’t proud of it, is getting there too.

They kiss, and they kiss, and Vitya’s hand snakes down Victor’s side, over his hip, and under the waistband of his sweatpants. It takes him a moment too long to figure out what’s about to happen—but when he does figure it out, he twists away.

Vitya looks at him. His lips are plumper and pinker than before. “Too weird?” he asks, clearly trying not to appear hurt.

It is. It’s incredibly weird. But Victor is too far into this to turn around now. And he doesn’t _want_ to turn around. Not with Vitya looking at him so hopefully. Not when he remembers, so well, what it was like to be nineteen and alone.

Tomorrow, he will have Yuuri again, and the life they’ve started to build together. Tomorrow, the Vitya in front of him won’t have anything but next season’s programs, which won’t even win him a single gold.

Victor shakes his head. “You surprised me. That’s all.”

A slow smile spreads across Vitya’s face, as he moves toward Victor again. “I’m good at surprising people.”

And as their mouths meet again, Vitya tries one more time to get his hand between Victor’s legs. This time, Victor lets him.

Vitya’s fingers move over him in ways that are both familiar and not. The same pressure applied to the same places, but at the wrong angle. It’s disorienting. It’s exhilarating. And it’s enough to have Victor spilling over his younger self’s hand in a matter of moments.

Vitya holds him upright as he recovers. “Old,” he says, and uses his tongue to clean his fingers off. Weird, weird, weird.

Victor laughs. And kisses Vitya. And looks down. Vitya is wearing a loose T-shirt over stretchy pants: one of his standard practice outfits, back then. The pants do nothing to hide his erection.

“What can I give you?” Victor asks, tracing his thumb over Vitya’s chin.

Vitya’s expression falters, and he hesitates. “Just…”

“Tell me, sweetheart.” The word feels misshapen in Victor’s mouth. He isn’t used to using it on anyone but Yuuri. But he doesn’t take it back. “Be honest. Tell me what you want.”

“Just, um… love me? The way you love _him_. Your fiancé.”

Nothing fancy, then. No public nudity, no ropes, no extravagance. Just love. Victor can do that.

Victor has learned, very recently, how to do that.

“Get undressed,” he says. “Get under the covers.”

Vitya climbs out of the bed and onto his feet, and strips his clothes off. It’s showy, at first, and he keeps checking to see if Victor’s watching him—but then he seems to remember what he asked for, because by the time he pulls his pants and underwear down, it’s all utilitarian movement. Like he’s alone, just getting ready for bed on any normal day. He climbs back into the bed, somewhat gingerly, mindful of his erection.

Victor strips too and, after a quick trip to the bathroom so he can clean himself up and grab an extra towel for afterwards, he joins Vitya in bed.

Their bodies are inches apart. Close enough that Victor can feel their heat mingling together, far enough apart that Victor can get his hand between them. He skims his fingers along Vitya’s cock, exploring him by touch alone. Vitya hisses and closes his eyes.

“No, look at me,” Victor says. “Let me see you.”

So Vitya opens his eyes again. He puts a hand on Victor’s face, then moves it to his shoulder, but doesn’t say anything. Victor smiles.

This is what love is like, for him; this is what it _will_ be like, for Vitya. The simplicity of touch, and of seeing and being seen. It feels like honesty, and quiet, and fingers moving gently over flesh. It smells like skin and sweat and breath. It sounds like the raw, jagged noises coming from Vitya’s mouth as he gets closer to the edge. It tastes like the desperation lingering on Vitya’s lips, when Victor kisses him again. And it looks like the wetness gathering in Vitya’s eyes, just before he closes them, just before he curls in on himself and comes into Victor’s hand.

“Shh,” Victor says, drawing Vitya closer, holding him tight. “You’re all right. You’re all right.”

-

They don’t sleep right away. It’s far, far too early for that. But after a few swipes of the towel, Victor arranges them under the quilt, between the sheets. Vitya’s back is to his front, and he curls around his younger self like a guard dog. Or like Yuuri.

“Will you tell him about this?” Vitya asks. “Your fiancé, I mean.”

“Yes,” Victor replies. “He’ll understand.”

 _He loves you too_ , is what Victor doesn’t say.

A bit later, Vitya asks, “Why did you cut your hair?”

Victor replies, “Why do you think?”

And then, when Victor actually _is_ beginning to doze off, Vitya whispers, “Are you happy?”

Victor replies, “Yes. I am.”

“Mmm. Good.”

“You will be, too.” Victor’s mouth gets ahead of him again, and he adds, stupidly, “If this _is_ a time-travel thing, and if you _do_ remember, then, just… you’ll be happy. I promise you will.”

“Hmm?” says Vitya.

“Hmm what?”

Vitya laughs. “Oh. No, I just… I thought you said something.”

“I… I didn’t,” says Victor. It’s the first time he’s lied all night.

“I’m kind of tired,” Vitya says, after another moment. “Do you want your salt? I don’t have to sleep here.”

“No, leave the salt,” Victor says, tightening his arms around Vitya’s chest. “Sleep. I’ve got you.”

Vitya hums again, a soft and pleasant sound. “Will you be here when I wake up?”

Victor bends forward and kisses the back of Vitya’s head, just above where his braid begins. He doesn’t reply, though. He doesn’t want to lie again.

-

When Victor wakes up, sunlight is streaming through the blinds. He is alone.

-

“It was Vicchan,” says Yuuri, clutching his mug of tea to his chest. He looks ready to burst with happiness. “He was a _puppy_. I wish you could’ve seen him.”

Victor sips his coffee, and he smiles. “Me, too. I’m glad you got to see him, though.”

“I didn’t even know pets were possible,” Yuuri says. “I have to tell Mari. Although.” He twists his neck around to look at the wall clock. “It’s definitely too early.”

“Way too early,” Victor agrees.

They are on rug, as they often are. Yuuri sits back on his heels, just as he did back home, and Victor sits cross-legged. Their knees are nearly close enough to touch, and Makka is in the kitchen, loudly eating his post-morning-walk meal.

“So, who’d you get?” Yuuri grins, dark eyes alight with mischief. “Was it the ghost of a past relationship? Did you banish them early and cry all night?”

“Ah, no,” Victor says. He probably owes Georgi an apology for laughing, actually. For all he knows, Georgi was telling the truth. “It was… it was actually weirder than that, if you can believe it.”

Yuuri’s face grows instantly serious. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m… yes. I’m fine. I’m, ah.” Victor takes a deep breath. “Yuuri. When I tell you what happened, do you promise you’ll believe me?”

“Of course,” Yuuri says simply. “Of course, always. Tell me everything.”

**Author's Note:**

> A better idea of what you're getting into:  
> In this fic, Victor essentially has sex with a younger version of himself, because magic. At the time, he is in a committed relationship with Yuuri, but he does not perceive this hookup as infidelity, since it's... with himself. Whether or not _you_ perceive it that way is, of course, up to you. (Yuuri's reaction is not shown in the fic, but if it helps at all, I imagine that Yuuri will be, at least, very understanding and, at most, a little turned on.)
> 
> If you want more stories set in this weird little AU of mine, you're in luck!  
> \- "And Again, Once More" by loquaciousrenegade is a sequel to this one, in which, the following year, Younger Victor visits Yuuri.  
> \- "pieces of bone, all rich in lovely parts" by verity is a mindnumbingly gorgeous remix of "Visiting Day" from Yuuri's point of view.  
> Both links are below, and you should definitely check them out.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [And Again, Once More](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11747253) by [loquaciousrenegade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/loquaciousrenegade/pseuds/loquaciousrenegade)
  * [pieces of bone, all rich in lovely parts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12055854) by [verity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/verity/pseuds/verity)




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